For a second straight year Southmont finished as the runner-up at the IHSAA Crawfordsville Wrestling Sectional.
The Mounties (209 points) placed seven wrestlers in the finals, but had just two champions, and were unable to overcome Zionsville’s 278 points. Crawfordsville was third with 140.5 points and advanced nine wrestlers to the regional round. North Montgomery claimed a pair of titles and finished fifth with 115.5 points, while Fountain Central was seventh with 93.
Dillan Lauy (126) and Riley Woodall (182) won individual titles for Southmont, while Baydin Hall (120) and Drew Webster (220) each defended their sectional titles for North Montgomery.
“We didn’t wrestle very well that last round,” Southmont coach Jamie Welliever said after the Eagles lead over the Mounties only grew larger in the final round. “A little inconsistent. We’ve got 11 guys moving on, but we have some work to do this week.”
Kion Cornelius (106), Noah Benge (120), Gerald Hutson (132), Ty Welliever (170), and Ethan Himes (220) each advanced to the finals for the Mounties, but finished as the runner-up.
Clayton Downey was third at 113, while Takeshi Greiner (145), Evan Francis (152), and Zayden Dunn (220) each finished fourth.
Lauy pinned Zionsville’s Mason Fairchild in the finals at 126, while Woodall avenged a pair of earlier season losses to North Montgomery’s Dawson McCloud in the championship bout at 182 with a 6-5 come-from-behind win.
“That’s the third time wrestled him this year, so I we got him on the right one,” Welliever added.
Welliever knew it was going to be a tough task to chase down the Eagles in the team standings, and feels like the Mounties might have lost focused after a couple of early losses.
“We were going to have to be perfect today in order to have a chance,” he said. “And once you lose a couple of those matches, you see the team part slip in there, and we have a bunch of guys that really play off the team aspect.”
Hall claimed the sectional title for North Montgomery at 120 with an 8-1 win over Benge. Webster won his third-straight title at 220 with a first period fall over Himes.
“They both wrestled really well,” North Montgomery coach Bryce McCoy said. “I was proud of our three qualifiers with how they wrestled overall.”
Unfortunately Hall, McCloud (who was the runner-up at 182), and Webster were the only three Charger wrestlers to qualify for the regional, despite having five top-4 seeds.
“I think we were lacking effort in a lot of weight classes today,” McCoy said. “It seemed like when something bad would happen, we would kind of fold under pressure. That was disappointing.”
Crawfordsville put together one of the most impressive days by any team with its third-place finish. The Athenians advanced just one wrestler to the finals, but advanced nine to the regional.
“I was pleased with taking nine,” Crawfordsville coach Chris Ervin said. “We tell our kids that we want to beat our seed, and we had definitely had a bunch of kids do that. As a team I thought top-3 would be a pretty solid accomplishment. So I am really pleased with the team effort and with the number of kids moving on. It was a good day.”
Kalob Brown was the runner-up at 285, falling 5-2 in the finals to Zionsville’s Cameron McDaniel.
Isaac Rogers (132), Clayton Owens (145), and Edwin Gil Herrera (152) each placed third overall, while Eric Demoret (106), Ethan Conkright (120), Alex Brown (126), Ethan Patton (182), and Moises Mora (195) were all fourth.
Ervin feels like the Athenians are peaking at the right time.
“We want to wrestle our best now and we want to go on that upward trend at the end of January and early February,” he said. “And I think that’s where we are at. I told the kids yesterday I thought we had the best week of practice all year.”
Fountain Central advanced five wrestlers to the regional round with a trio of runner-up finishes.
Austin Pickett was pinned by Zionsville’s Logan Wagner in the finals at 138, while Zionsville’s Shane Bates pinned Willie Frazee at 152. Covington’s Tanner Dreher won by fall over Matthew Alexander in the finals at 195.
Eli Oiler also advanced with a fourth-place finish at 113, and Jason Matthews placed third at 126.
The regional is Saturday at North Montgomery.
